Film Comparison

          Steven Spielberg did an excellent job of directing Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple.  It all began in 1909.  Celie was abused by her father and had her children taken away from her.  She could not be a mother to her own children.  She was forced to marry a man that her father chose for her, “even though she was the ugly one.”  This part matched up exactly with the book; however, I did not know what time period the book started.  I knew at the end of the book, when Celie was selling pants—it was about 1940; but, I was surprised to see how many years actually went by.  The movie went from horse drawn carriages to Model A’s and a 1935 Studebaker Commander Roadster, that Shug rode in.  The movie did a better job of illustrating what decade it was in, as well as the age of the characters.  Mr. ______ especially aged.  I could not believe it.  Like we discussed in class, I never pictured Celie’s children to be that old in the movie—I thought they would have been teenagers, not married. 

            I noticed that the book was a lot more graphic than the movie itself.  I was glad that the movie was not that graphic—it was horrible enough reading about it in the book.  Albert (Mr. ___) actually seems much nicer in the movie, than he appears to be in the book.  Aside from the part where Nettie is sent away (see video clip), he does not yell at Celie as much as he did in the book.  They even become friends at the end of the book; Albert realizes how poorly he treated Celie over the years. 

            I also feel that the movie gave me a better picture of what was happening between Harpo and Sophia.  I was a little confused in this part of the book, but after I watched the movie, it made much more sense.  I was glad to see that Sophia was able to meet her children again.

            I think Spielberg chose to make these adjustments for various reasons.  I believe that he took out many of these scenes showing abuse because he wanted to make it more of a family film, like the other movies he directed such as E.T. or the Indiana Jones Trilogy.  Spielberg is known for his family friendly films.  I also believe that Spielberg chose to illustrate on screen, which time period it was so the viewers would not be confused—I liked this.  Without knowing the time period, it would be somewhat difficult to follow the movie; even though he does give us, as viewers, clues with the type of clothing and vehicles.  I believe that Spielberg kept a lot of the dialect from the book because he did not want to make the movie completely different.  Overall, he did a good job of capturing the characters, especially Celie’s relationship with Shug.  I think he makes Albert seem better than he is for the sake of young viewers.  Regardless, I believe that Spielberg did a fantastic job directing this movie, even though he had to make changes as he saw fit. 

Please refer to the Works Cited page for sources.           

Posted by zers

Overall, I believe the film did a great job capturing the emotion and plot line from The Color Purple. First I will talk about the things the film did well. The film starts off with Celie giving birth to Olivia, and her father taking away the baby. Right away the film brings out emotion in the viewer, just like in the book. Celie serves as the narrator for the movie and she frequently speaks to God or Nettie, using the words from the book. This helps the viewer know what she is really thinking on the inside; although, the actresses who played Celie did a great job showing Celie’s emotion on their faces during the movie. I say actresses because there was a different actress portraying Celie at different times in her life, depending on her age. I knew from the beginning that it would be difficult to watch the movie, even though I knew what happened in the end.

The film did a great job portraying all the aspects of Celie’s life. It started out with Celie at age fourteen and excelled from there. And aside from the book, the movie actually displayed the year that it was, so the viewer really did know what age Celie was. The film showed Celie’s sexual harassment from her father, as well as the abuse from her husband. But it did not show her being beaten more than once. It only showed Celie being scared of her husband so the viewer knew the beating was still happening, just not in front of the camera. The viewer knew all the issues Celie faced. I was also very happy about the way the film showed Sophia. Sophia was exactly what I pictured in the book; a woman that would not take shit from anyone, until she was forced to work for the mayor’s wife. Anyone could tell how much that was killing her; the makeup artist for the film even had her age faster than the other women because of this.

Now I will talk about the things I thought the movie did not do well. I found the movie to undermine Celie’s relationship with Shug and Nettie. First I will talk about Nettie. The movie really showed how much Celie cared about Nettie and how she wanted to protect her. But after Albert forced Nettie to leave, she was not heard from for awhile. Now in the book, before Shug leaves the first time, Shug and Celie discover Nettie’s letters. But in the movie, the two of them did not find the letters until Shug came back with Grady. This irritated me because in the book I found the passage of Shug and Celie talking about Nettie very empowering. Shug wanted to hear all about Nettie. But this did not happen in the movie when they found the letters. Celie found them and that was that. The movie did show some of the letters from Nettie to Celie, and showed footage of Nettie in Africa, but it was only about ten minutes long. In the book, Nettie’s letters to Celie seemed to be about a fourth of the book. So the movie downplayed that part. In the end, Nettie and Celie reunite and the movie does a good part in showing that.

Now I will talk about Shug and Celie. When Celie first moves in with Albert in the movie, Celie sees the photo of Shug. But it is not mentioned who the picture is of. If the viewer had not read the book, they might not be affected by that picture at all, and it played such an important part in the book. The film did a great job on presenting how Celie loved Shug, but it only showed that Shug loved Celie as a friend. There was only one scene in which Shug and Celie kissed and the viewer might think that that is all that ever happened with them. I think it would have been smarter to have Celie narrate the passage in which Celie says that she and Shug sleep and cuddle together each night. Then the viewer will know how their relationship escalated into something more than a friendship.

Overall, Steven Spielberg did a great job directing The Color Purple into a movie; the storyline is the same between the book and movie. I know it is hard to capture everything a book is and put it into a movie, but Spielberg did it well. My favorite scenes were ones with Celie and Shug, Celie always had a huge smile on her face.  Especially the scene when Shug sings Celie’s song while at Harpo’s Juke Joint. Celie stuck her tongue out at the other ladies watching as if saying ha ha she’s mine. All in all, I enjoyed the movie and the book, and even though they were hard to watch or read at times, I would recommend them to other people.

Posted by renee:)